


a winter's tale

by Siria



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-03-26
Updated: 2009-03-26
Packaged: 2017-10-03 20:41:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siria/pseuds/Siria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A winter's gale once tugged free from the ground the pegs that held their tent secure on one side.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a winter's tale

**Author's Note:**

> For Fractalreality.

A winter's gale once tugged free from the ground the pegs that held their tent secure on one side. It was one of Teyla's last memories of her father: scrambling outside after him on her skinny teenage legs, helping him to haul down on the ropes while the wind tried to buffet the canvas higher, making the ropes burn against her bare fingers. The rain was fierce and ice-cold, working its way underneath even her thick winter clothing and plastering her curls to her scalp.

"Typical Athosian winter," her father had grumbled later. He had only just taken his first mouthful of steaming tuttleroot stew, but Teyla was already halfway through her bowl, toes wriggling contentedly in a pair of fresh, dry socks. Overhead, their tent curved neatly once more, an eggshell-green shell beneath a roiling grey sky. "Nothing but rain, rain and more rain. Maybe next year we'll go spend the season with your grandmother's people, hmm, Teyla-_ji_? Less chance we'll be washed away."

Sitting now in the kitchen of Jeannie Miller's home, gazing out the window with her fingers curled gratefully around a mug full of hot, sweetened tea, Teyla wondered what her father would have thought of a winter like this—if it would have brought out the optimist in him, or the pessimist. Snow was not unknown on Athos, but Teyla had never known it to fall as heavily there as it did on this part of Earth—a thick and constant flurry of flakes that made a still-unfamiliar place seem stranger still, deadening sound but making vision seem sharper yet.

Outside, Torren and Rodney were silhouetted against the whiteness. In his blue snow-suit and red cap, his woollen mittens and waterproof boots—all articles which Rodney had declared vital for so much as venturing past one's threshold in the midst of a Canadian November—Torren was a beacon of bright colour as he ran circles around Rodney's legs. His walk was losing its toddler's uncertainty, but every now and then he still clutched at the material of Rodney's trousers as he ran past—a talisman against gravity that Torren had learned to rely on when he was taking his first, still-hesitant steps.

Teyla could not hear what Rodney was saying to Torren, but from the tilt of his head and his posture—leaning forward slightly, as if facing into a strong wind; hands clasped behind his back—she was quite certain that he was lecturing to Torren with as much earnestness as if her son could truly appreciate the brilliance of his snow engineering plan.

(_A fort_, Rodney had declared over breakfast that morning, waving his toast around like a banner, _will be constructed that will make a mockery of that, that **thing** Sheppard and Ronon are lumping together_). Teyla took this to mean that John had indeed had internet access installed in his cabin, allowing him, Rodney, and Ronon to resume their three-way e-mail attachment war. There were times when Teyla rued Samantha's gift of a digital camera to Ronon. There had already been several photographs taken of a less than mature nature.)

Torren seemed more interested in stomping a path across the Millers' snowy lawn, pausing every now and then to clap his gloved hands in satisfaction at the trail of footprints he was leaving behind him. The sight of his happiness made Teyla smile, and think of the Tale of Sentha—a story told to generations of Athosian children about a small child lost in the great forests, who had had to use the aid of a rincka and a merna bird to discover the trail back home—perhaps it was a story which she could recite to Torren later, when she had recalled them both inside for a bowl of warming soup.

From behind her, Teyla heard the kitchen door swing open. There was briefly the noise of tinny music from the television in the living room—Madison, no doubt, enjoying her increased snow-day allowance of television by watching the _High School Musical_ recording once again, though she had already seen it so many times that Teyla had long grown weary of it; she resolved once more to find a quiet moment in which to ask Jeannie the source of her patience, for she was sure she would have need of it herself before Torren was much older—and then Jeannie nudged the door closed behind her with her foot. In her hands was a tray piled high with coffee mugs of a variety of colours, ranging in size from the large to the very large.

Teyla raised an eyebrow; Jeannie's nose scrunched up. "I swear, sometimes I don't know if Kaleb or Mer is the bigger pig," she said. "It's like they have a competition to see who can leave used mugs to grow mould in the most bizarre of places. There was one inside Madison's _dollhouse_." Jeannie upended the tray into the sink, and squirted a healthy amount of dish soap onto the mound of crockery.

Teyla laughed softly. "And yet if one so much as moves a file by a fraction on Rodney's desk…"

"It's World War Three," Jeannie said, eyeing the rising mound of lather in the sink with a grim satisfaction. "Honestly, Mer's my brother and everything and I love him, but sometimes I do not get why you want to marry him. You're a hot, smart princess from another planet! You could get anyone: Daniel Craig, Johnny Depp, John Sheppard"—there were times when Teyla was certain that Jeannie was harbouring an unacknowledged partiality for John; it was a trait that the McKays, as a family, seemed prone to—"and yet you're walking down the aisle with _him_."

She jerked a thumb at the window, and Teyla looked outside to see that Rodney had abandoned fort construction for the moment, and was demonstrating to Torren how to create precise and defined snow angels. From her perch on the window seat, Teyla could see how Rodney's cheeks and the tip of his nose were flushed pink, and how broad the smile on his face was, as he gave Torren a thumbs up. It was a Thursday in November, and Rodney could have been drinking beer with Ronon and John, or presenting a paper to an academic conference that strained the limits of what he was allowed to say of what he knew, and yet he had chosen to come here with her, and play in the snow with her son.

"He is here," Teyla said finally, slowly, "when so many others are not. He chooses to be here. That is important."

Jeannie looked at her over one shoulder, her hands still busily scrubbing sticky coffee dregs from the bottom of the mugs, blonde curls bobbing in time with her movements. Her mouth pursed up for a moment, before relaxing into a smile. "I am happy for you two, you know," she said. "I just—after the last two months, I just want to know that you're both actually happy, too."

"We are," Teyla said, standing and placing her now-empty mug with all the others in the sink. "It is not, perhaps, what I planned. But he has become… necessary to me."

"Well, that's… good. I'm glad. Honestly." Jeannie rolled her eyes. "God, listen to me. The emotive apple doesn't fall far from the McKay genetic tree."

"You have been very kind to all three of us," Teyla assured her. "Though I do know of a way in which you could cheer me still further."

"Okay?"

"I believe that between the two of us, we should be able to aim enough snowballs at Rodney to make for a memorable photo to send to John and Ronon."

Jeannie blinked at her for a moment. "Do you think we'll be able to get some snow down the back of his fleece?"

"I would encourage it," Teyla said calmly, fighting back the smile that was threatening to tug upwards the corners of her mouth.

"Let me get my gloves," Jeannie blurted, hurrying over to the door, "and Maddy. She's going to want to witness this."

The photos turned out very well indeed; though thanks to a pitched battle which began with tossed pillowcases and finished with soft kisses on a rumpled bed, they were deleted from the camera before Teyla had a chance to send them on to the rest of their team.

(Most of them.)


End file.
